Sweeter than Honey
by athousandsmiles
Summary: She leans in closer, nearly toppling over, and ignores the twinge of conscience that tells her she's eavesdropping yet again. House/Cameron Set in season three.
1. Hopeless

**A/N: I wrote this as a one shot two years ago, and it is by far the weirdest thing I've ever written. This was a follow up to that season three episode with Honey, the woman House flirted with in the clinic. (Can't remember the episode title.) There are references to, and actual quotes from other episodes as well. **

** Chapter two was written as a sequel a year ago, and chapter three as another sequel last month. If it seems familiar to you, you've probably read it over at live journal. Beta'd by the most awesome, blueheronz. **

Allison Cameron had never really believed in fairy tales. She was not the princess waiting for her prince to carry her off on his white steed. But she did believe in her own version of happily ever after. Or maybe happy was too strong a word. She'd settle for satisfaction.

She was seated at the end of the bar, a baseball cap on her head and a beer in her hand. The hat was the only remnant of her relationship with Chase (unless you count regret), something she'd borrowed from him in her hurry to get home to shower and change one morning. She needed to be around people; desperate people, lonely people trying to make a connection, people who were even more pathetic than she was. Or so she told herself. Tonight the hat was her keep out sign.

_Not interested. Don't care. Just here for the beer._

Something was different with House lately that she couldn't pinpoint, and it bothered her. He bothered her. The fact that she was still in love with him bothered her. Hence the beer that was beginning to take effect.

_Satisfaction not guaranteed. I can't get no...satisfaction. But then again, you can't always get what you want._

She took a long swallow for Mick Jagger and his infinite wisdom.

She'd been imagining a future with House for so long that she felt incapable of giving up on that hope. It wouldn't be perfect. He'd still have his vices--vicodin and bourbon and sarcasm--but she would love him anyway. She'd never wanted to change him. Didn't even think it possible.

_"People don't change. At least, not in any way that really matters."_

A patient's wife had once said that to her and she believed it was true. Then again, that woman had been trying to murder her husband, so maybe she shouldn't give her words too much weight.

_Her words were worth their weight in gold, which she sprinkled on his cornflakes every morning, slowly poisoning him._

Cameron grinned as her thoughts started going in circles, making less and less sense as the buzz from the beer warmed her and made her limbs feel deliciously tingly. She was a lightweight when it came to alcohol, but tonight she didn't care.

_Circular thoughts. Ringing around my mind. Ringing. Circling like a ring. More gold. A gold ring. A band meant to represent love. Commitment. _

She didn't even need the ring. But the commitment would be nice.

As if her thoughts had somehow conjured him up, she heard his voice, deep and smooth and as familiar to her as her own voice. It washed over her like a warm shower on a cold day. She glanced up from her beer and spotted him several seats over, his back turned to her, sitting next to a woman who was sipping tea. She recognized the woman from the clinic--had seen House flirting with her there. Honey.

_Sipping tea. It suits her to a T. Tea with Honey. Honey with her tea._

She almost started giggling at that. Maybe it was an effect of the beer, but she thought it awfully strange that someone would drink tea in a bar. She unconsciously leaned forward on her stool to get a better look at the young woman.

Long wavy brown hair, petite, slender frame, small breasts, young--maybe even younger than Cameron herself, and very pretty. She barely refrained from raising her beer to the woman in a sort of salute. The physical resemblance between them amused her. It was even kind of flattering in a weird way, like House was seeking out a substitute for herself.

_Honey. A sweet substitute for saccharine Cameron. Sappy, sugary Cameron. Sugar and spice and everything nice. Sugar comes from a cane. He could make me come with his cane. His cane makes me come._

She buried her head in the crook of her arm to stifle her laughter. In a brief lucid moment she realized how drunk she was. She'd probably have to call someone to pick her up when she was finished drowning her angst in alcohol.

_Chase will come for me. Chase has come for me. In the sleep lab, in the supply closet, in a patient's home. I chased Chase and made him come. Now Chase is chasing me, but I will not come for Chase anymore._

She snorted into her beer, then tried to focus on House and Honey again, straining to hear what they were saying.

"I'm on antidepressants, 'cause a doctor friend of mine thinks I'm miserable. I don't like them, they make me hazy. I eat meat. I like drugs."

_A hazy House. A high House. A hazy high House. High hopes for hazy House._

Only House could rattle off a list of vices and still be charming. But then she heard his next words and they wrapped around her heart and squeezed until she felt she couldn't breathe, felt that surely the blood had stopped pulsing through her veins.

"And...I'm not always faithful to the women I date."

_Cheater, cheater, meat eater..._

The words clattered around her brain in an endless litany, like some kind of demented nursery rhyme. She felt suddenly, excruciatingly sober.

Maybe she was as naive and pathetic as everyone thought her to be, because she never imagined him as a cheater. Never imagined that if they finally came together he might not be true to her. Of all his vices, this was the one she could never accept.

She gathered her jacket, her bag, and her dignity, slid some bills across the bar and left quietly. Her hand on the door, she caught his reflection in the glass.

"Oh, and I hate tea," she heard him say as he brought the mug to his lips.

_"What the hell is this?"_

_"Black walnut and ginger."_

_"It's nice."_

_Everybody lies._

She wouldn't let herself cry, for crying would leave evidence that she was heartbroken, and that was something she could not, would not give him. She simply grabbed a cab, stumbled through her door, dropped her things, grabbed a bottle of wine and crawled into bed fully clothed.

Sobriety was overrated.

She opened the wine and gulped it straight from the bottle, hoping for the buzz again. She was glad she hadn't waited to see if he took Honey home. Didn't want to think of him screwing her in his bed. The bed she'd so recently sat on while she gently woke him.

_"This is what regular people look like when you wake them up."_

Yeah. Except when had House ever been a regular person.

_We've switched your regular House with Folgers decaffeinated House._

She snorted in a very unladylike fashion, and sloshed wine onto her bed, which pooled in a crevice on her comforter before soaking in and leaving a blood red stain. Like the carpet he'd insisted on keeping in the conference room.

_"All change is bad. It's not true, you know."_

_Change sucks!_

She'd perched on the edge of his bed, silently hoping he'd swoop her onto it fully and ravage her body, foregoing foreplay and simply tearing off her clothes and pushing into her in one quick thrust. She'd wanted it rough. Hoped it would be rough. And then she'd hoped he'd ask her to stay. Wrap his arms around her and sleep, waking later for a round of gentle lovemaking. She'd hoped it would be the beginning of them.

Hope was dead. Crushed to dust under the weight of her plummeting expectations.

_"I'm not going to crush you."_

_Everybody lies._

_Did he take Honey home? Dip his stick into her honeycomb? Dunk his teabag into her mug?_

Suddenly it wasn't funny anymore.

_Ignorance is bliss._


	2. Hope Renewed

The next morning, hungover and bedraggled, Cameron managed to get her sorry self into work on time. She wanted to be a coward, stay in bed all day and forget the conversation she'd heard in the bar the night before. But denial and self-loathing just wasn't her style. If she could work after a meth high and a night of riding Chase like a bucking bronco, than this... this was doable as well.

Once inside the conference room, she headed straight for the coffee maker and brewed a pot. She grabbed some ibuprofen and threw it down her throat, chasing it with a gulp of scalding hot coffee and ignoring the burn; anything to silence the marching band that had taken up residence inside her skull. She carried her mug out to the balcony for some fresh air and a chance to gather her thoughts before the others arrived. Before _he_ arrived.

And that's when she heard him. Again.

"It wasn't a date. More like an interview." House's voice drifted out of Wilson's office through the propped open door.

"And?" Wilson prompted. "How was it?"

"She drinks tea. Peppermint." There was a pause and then House continued. "She seemed surprisingly okay with my vices."

"What? How would she... What'd you do? Tell her you're a drug addict?"

"That, and a few other things. I might have embellished some of my bad traits, just to see where she'd draw the line."

"Ooookay. What exactly did you say?"

"I told her I was on anti-depressants, I like drugs, I eat meat, I lie, and I'm not always faithful to the women I date."

Cameron crept a little closer, ignoring the brief and sudden onset of shame at her sudden propensity for eavesdropping. She wanted to see him, read his expressions as he spoke, but all she could see without giving herself away was the back of his head.

"Wow," Wilson responded. "And she was okay with that?"

She saw House nod once, and heard him respond, "Yeah. Weird huh?"

"Sooo, she sounds like a sure thing. You take her home?"

Cameron's marching band detoured to her stomach, stopping briefly to stomp on her heart. She swallowed and took another sip of coffee, telling herself the nausea was only a by product of her hangover.

"Nope," House answered without hesitation and it was like a shot of morphine to Cameron, relief so sweet and instantaneous, she had to stifle a happy laugh.

"What? You... Why not?" Wilson sputtered, and Cameron fought another bout of giggles.

House stood and turned, looking Cameron right in the eye through the glass door, as if he'd known she was there all along. And then he answered.

"She wasn't my cup of tea."


	3. Sweeter than Honey

**Here's the smutty conclusion, although I fear my smut writing skills are inferior, so bear that in mind. **

As he stared her down through the open door of Wilson's office, a wave of lust-induced heat swept over her like a sudden fever, unaffected by the cool morning breeze coming over the balcony wall. Powerless to look away, she was unaware that her hand had tilted until she heard the splattering of coffee onto the cement beneath her feet. She righted her mug without breaking his gaze, ignoring the brown splotches soaking through her pants. In his eyes was a desire so potent, she felt as if he was in her already, moving in perfect rhythm and touching her in all the right places. Her empty hand moved up, of its own accord, and she stroked her neck with her fingertips, imagining his lips in their place.

Wilson cleared his throat and House looked away. Disappointed and uncomfortably aroused, she moved back into the conference room to start the mail, hangover forgotten.

She spent the rest of the day distracted by images of making love to him that were so vivid they felt more like memories instead of fantasies. Every time he spoke, his voice raised goosebumps on her flesh and sent her mind spinning in very unproductive directions. Words like sarcoidosis and tuberosclerosis were erotic coming from his lips. Orders to run tests and get a history became more like commands uttered in the throes of passion.

She had to have him.

"Thinking about me?"

He stood in the doorway between his office and the conference room, leaning against the door frame looking like sex in a wrinkled button down and blue jeans. The cocky smirk on his face? An aphrodisiac.

Those all-seeing eyes of his unnerved her, made her feel like he'd peeled back her skin and performed exploratory surgery. She had no doubt he knew where her mind had been all day, and that he was enjoying her predicament.

Ignoring him, she tossed her pen down, closed the file and began retrieving her things. There was no point in arguing about it or trying to prove him wrong.

As she brushed past him, she lingered just long enough to answer his question.

"Yes," she murmured, desire deepening her voice to a husky alto. Tossing a saucy grin over her shoulder, she swept out of the room, heading for home.

As she had hoped, he followed her shortly after, rapping on her door impatiently with the end of his cane. Dressed for seduction, she was ready for him. A tiny, lacy red thong barely covered her sex, and the matching teddy fell to her waist, with a vertical opening that started just below her breasts and went all the way down. The soft fabric pulled taut over her nipples, allowing them to poke through the lace.

Without hesitation, she opened the door and pulled him in, giving him no time to protest as she pressed herself against him and kissed him, a woman with a raging hunger that had to be satisfied.

"God, Cameron," he moaned, when she relinquished him just long enough to breathe.

Tugging his jacket off his shoulders, she flung it aside and then pulled his shirt over his head. He stood there, stupefied by her actions, until she leaned in and licked the place on his neck just beside his Adam's apple, her fingers frantically working to loosen his belt buckle. Throwing back his head, an unintelligible sound escaped from his lips, and his hands slid around her, grasping her bare ass.

Looping her fingers through his belt loops, she dragged him to the bedroom, never taking her eyes off him as she moved. She was not about to let him back out of this now. The sizable bulge beneath his fly told her he wanted her just as much as she wanted him.

Once in her bedroom, she leaned into him again, determined to touch every inch of him with every inch of herself. Instead he shoved her backwards onto the bed, staring her down with a look so raw with need, she thought she might come just from the way his eyes roamed over her.

Without his shirt he was Adonis with a sprinkling of silvery chest hair that begged to be touched. His jeans hung low on his hips, revealing the sharp angle of his ilium bones, leading to his pubis. She wanted to trace them with her fingertips and then her lips, her tongue.

Holding her gaze, he began to remove his pants, slowly, almost as if he was performing a strip tease. Whenever her gaze wandered down his body, he'd stop until she looked him in the eye again, and she wondered if he didn't want her to notice his scar or the way he struggled. But she was too breathlessly aroused to care about either at the moment. She just wanted him on her. In her.

Once he'd kicked his jeans to the side, he moved to end of the bed, taking one of her feet into his hands and sliding his thumbs up the arch and back down again in a gentle pressure, his eyes never leaving her face. Never would she have imagined the soles of her feet were an erogenous zone, but she found herself sighing a long drawn out "Yes."

When he was done he brought her foot to his lips and kissed each of her toes before kissing up her calf to her knee and then back down, dragging his tongue in a trail of heat along her skin. Taking up her other foot, he did the same to it, a single-minded determination in his gaze.

Squirming beneath his ministrations, she felt powerless. Part of her wanted to speed things along and part of her wanted it to never end. He was the most thorough lover she'd ever had. Looking up at her with a sly smile like he knew exactly what she was thinking, his fingers tiptoed over the triangle of lace covering her and then up further.

Continuing his maddeningly slow pace, he slid one hand under her teddy, resting it on her abdomen while his other hand swept aside her hair from her face. He kissed her lips like he was sipping a fine wine, tasting and savoring the flavor, before plunging his tongue inside her mouth. Her fingers plowed through his hair, hands gripping the back of his head as they kissed.

No part of her went untouched. He made love to her with the same focus he used when he had a new medical puzzle to solve. There was nothing else but her and him.

She wasn't even naked yet and she felt completely on the edge of orgasm. Pulling the teddy off her, he latched on to one of her breasts with his mouth, his tongue laving across her nipple until she arched against him and gasped in pleasure. Once he'd paid due attention to that breast, he moved on to the other and gave it the same treatment. Her heart rate was off the charts, she was sure, and speeding up even more as he moved down her stomach and then hovered above the lacy thong covering her sex. Looking up at her, there was a devilish glint in his eyes and he licked his lips. Satisfied with whatever reaction he was looking for in her, he nudged her panties aside with his nose, holding them out of the way with one hand and then he dove right in, tasting every inch of her. She felt as if he was worshiping her with his mouth, and all she could do was moan unintelligibly, bringing her hips up to meet him and coming harder than she'd ever come before.

A cocky grin on his face, he peeled her thong off, and spoke for the first time since she'd dragged him into her bedroom.

"Got condoms?"

Sitting up, her breathing still labored, she grabbed the square foil off the nightstand, fingers shaking as she tried to tear it open. Taking it from her hands, he ripped it open with his teeth and rolled it on quickly. And then he was in her and she could feel the pleasure building again, vaguely aware that he'd done most of the touching since he'd thrown her on the bed.

He had remarkable stamina for a middle-aged drug addict. She lost track of time as he continued thrusting, dragging his hands up the back of her thighs and changing the angle. Slickened with sweat and breathing erratically, she thought she'd die of a pleasurable exhaustion. She remembered her sex speech to Chase a few years ago, but she never thought she'd be experiencing it quite this literally for herself.

_Pupils dilate, arteries constrict, core temperature rises, heart races, blood pressure skyrockets, respiration becomes rapid and shallow, the brain fires bursts of electrical impulses from nowhere to nowhere and secretions spit out of every gland, and the muscles tense and spasm like you're lifting three times your body weight. It's violent, it's ugly, and it's messy, and if God hadn't made it unbelievably fun… the human race would have died out eons ago._

If sex with House could kill her... well, she couldn't think of a better way to go.

Finally, House reached between them and pressed a finger against her clit and she nearly launched off the bed, held down only by the weight of him above her.

Every man who had ever touched her was a pale shadow compared to him, and she suspected she'd never have a better lover in the future. She was under no delusions that this was anything more than sex for him, and had already told herself that she would accept this one night and be mature about it, despite the fact that her heart wanted more.

Rolling off her, he laid flat on his back beside her, staring up at the ceiling with a satisfied grin on his face that she was sure matched her own smile. Without a word, she fell asleep, content enough with the fact that he hadn't fled the premises the second it was over.

A few hours later, she felt the bed shift and woke to find him dressing in the dark.

"'Night House. See you at work," she murmured and went back to sleep.

Dragging her tired body into the hospital the next morning, uncertainty plagued her. She had no expectations that one night with House would turn into a relationship, but she also had no idea how he would behave the day after sleeping with her. He could be so unpredictable at times, and her worst fear was that he'd be extra bastardy in an attempt to show her that it meant nothing.

It wasn't nothing though. At the very least, it was a fantasy come true, a memory to drag out on lonely nights. The way his stubble, softer than it appeared, felt on her bare skin...

Distracted by her thoughts, she stumbled, barely righting herself before hitting the floor. Her bag tilted, her things sliding out and rolling across the tile. Kneeling, she began to retrieve her belongings, crawling behind the counter at the nurses station to grab a stray lipstick.

And then she heard his voice, and froze.

"But mom, I swear I was at the library studying last night."

Beside him, she heard Wilson's beleaguered sigh. "You were whistling just now, which you only do when you've gotten lucky. Who was it? That Honey chick?"

"Nope. Told you, she wasn't my cup of tea."

"Ah, but you don't deny that you got some. C'mon, who was it? Hooker?"

"Not a hooker. And I didn't ask her name," House answered, selectively leaving out the pertinent detail that it was someone whose name he already knew. Cameron was paralyzed, one hand stretched toward the tube of lipstick as she eavesdropped for the third time in as many days.

"You gonna see her again?" Wilson asked, and Cameron held her breath as she awaited House's answer.

"Maybe."

"Oh ho ho," Wilson huffed. "Maybe means yes, which means you like her. I take it she was good then."

At that, Cameron's cheeks burned and she raised her face to get a glimpse of the two of them.

Leaning over the counter, House winked at her before answering.

"Oh yeah. Sweeter than honey."

Fin


End file.
